


How to Smile

by mocinno



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), marianne gets a cameo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 15:26:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22498306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mocinno/pseuds/mocinno
Summary: Claude teaches Byleth how to smile.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth & Claude von Riegan
Comments: 1
Kudos: 45





	How to Smile

Byleth was taken aback when Hanneman reminded her of an old nickname from her mercenary days. 

The Ashen Demon.

She never liked it. Jeralt’s “Blade Breaker” stemmed from his amazing combat ability. Byleth’s was from her inability to emote.

Enemies feared her for her stony expression as she cut them down, but Byleth only ever thought of it as an embarrassing quirk. 

Her house leader, however, was the exact opposite.

Claude wore his heart on his sleeve. Smiling, winking, laughing, frowning. It all came so easily from him.

It all started with Claude.

She asked him to stay after class.

The other students chatted as they poured out of the room, and Claude sauntered up to her desk with ever the confident simper. "Hey, Teach. You need me for something?"

"Yes. I have a very important task for you. It's not part of the curriculum." She set her elbows on her desk, intertwined her fingers, and rested her chin atop them. It was her best effort to appear serious.

He had a scheming glint in his eyes as he responded. "Oh? Tell me more."

"I need you to teach me... how to smile."

"Huh?" He blinked, hard. Twice. She stared back with her usual stern frown. "Wait, you're serious?"

"Yes," she continued, feeling her ears redden, "if you haven't already witnessed, I lack the skill. And you seem to excel at it."

He blinked again, and after several moments of stunned silence, slapped her desk as he laughed. 

This continued for at  _ least _ two minutes, from Claude leaning on her desk and chuckling, to his hands on his legs as he wheezed, sputtering out her request between sobs of giggles.

All the while, Byleth's face remained still, though her eye did twitch slightly at the one minute mark.

After Claude had sufficiently howled his lungs out and regained his breath, he leaned his elbows on Byleth's desk with a deadly, conniving smirk, mirroring her pose.

"Sure, I'll help you, Teach. But I have a prerequisite. I'll tell you a secret that you need to keep."

She nodded tentatively. It felt as though she were playing a dangerous game of chess, a game she did not want to lose.

"Half the time when I smile, it's fake." Even with the darkness of his words, Claude held his smarmy grin. "You know me, Teach, good old 'conspiring Claude.'"

She mused over his words. The revelation was unsurprising, considering his nature. Yet, when she thought back to the times he smiled at her with his signature wink, it always felt genuine. Surely that half of the true smiles weren’t  _ just _ for her. It was a thought she would have to sit on later.

"So, while I can teach you how to smile, I'm not capable of teaching you how to smile  _ authentically _ . I don't think anyone can, actually. Only you can teach yourself something like emotions, you know?"

She didn't know but nodded anyway.

* * *

Their "lessons" began that Sunday, in the courtyard outside the house classrooms.

"First," Claude declared, his index finger in the air, his other arm tucked behind his back, marching across the grass like a military instructor, "do you know what a smile is?"

Byleth puffed her hair from her face. "Claude, if you don't plan to take this seriously..."

"I'm just asking! Now, close your eyes." She did so, and she heard the quiet footsteps of his feet in the grass. Suddenly, she felt his fingers at the sides of her stomach-- he was tickling her.

Her eyes flew open in surprise as she laughed. "Ah, ahah! You little-!" She twisted, trying to smack him, but he dodged and ran like a startled deer. 

"Claude!" She chased him to the Golden Deer classroom, weaving between oblivious students.

When she entered, she saw Claude ducked behind Marianne, a desk between the students and the teacher.

”Marianne, would you please move aside?”

”Marianne, I’ll let you copy my homework for the next week if you don’t.”

”Marianne, if you cheat on your homework, I'll give you both detention. Now, step aside, and I’ll give you a free pass to sit out any skirmish.”

Like a lost lamb, Marianne looked between Claude and Byleth.

Claude growled and, like a feral animal, jumped over the desk, barely dodged Byleth’s hands, and sprinted out of the room.

Byleth followed him all the way into the training grounds. He narrowly ducked under the spears of Dimitri and Sylvain’s as they sparred, a feat she would applaud him for at a later time.

Standing on one of the steps, he put his hands to his head, palms open, and shouted, “fear the deer, Teach!”

She was vaguely insulted. She was the Golden Deer teacher, after all. Was she to fear herself?

“Claude,” she pressed her hand briefly against Sylvain’s back as she weaved between the lances, “sorry Sylvain, right behind you, CLAUDE VON RIEGAN!” Grabbing a leather shield from the weapon rack, she quickly flung it at Claude.

Despite having only one entrance, he managed to both dodge the flying decapitator and flee the room before Byleth could catch him.

By the time she reached the dormitories, she was out of breath, leaning on her thighs as she panted. Unfortunately, she had lost sight of him in her brief respite. She sat, gratefully, on an empty bench.

Claude was tired too, apparently, and he plopped next to her with a heavy sigh. “You really gave me a run for my money.” 

Byleth pushed her bangs from her face as she spoke. “May I ask what the purpose of all this exercise was? You should have just asked to go for a run with me.”

”Nah, Teach! This is all for your smile practice!”

Struck by the absurdity of his words, Byleth cocked an eyebrow. “Huh?”

”See!” He gestured to her face. “People are always more emotional after they’ve exercised.”

”That’s really not-“

”How I see it is that your body’s too tired to repress your emotions.”

Byleth pressed a hand to her mouth. He’d planned to wear her out so that she was too tired to  _ not _ emote?

”And what would you have done if I hadn’t chased you?”

”Well,” he said sheepishly, “I still would’ve made you smile from tickling. I made my plan up on the fly, y’know, when I was hiding behind Marianne.”

He put his hands behind his head and leaned back. “You have a nice smile, by the way. Kinda makes me sad you don’t show it more often. But I guess that’s what makes it special, right?”

Her face flushed. All in all, their first day of smile practice  _ had  _ gone quite well.

“Maybe so. Anyway,” she stood and stretched, “why don’t we go to the dining hall? I’m dying for a bite to eat, thanks to you.”

”Sure.” He got off the bench with a grunt. “Also, Teach? Never call me by my full name again. The sight of a furious mercenary-teacher running towards me at full speed, howling my name like a curse, is not something I want to see again.”

She snickered.

”Aha! A laugh!” Claude clapped his hands together with pride. “I think this smile practice couldn’t have gone better.”

She elbowed him gently, still smiling. “Not quite the full range. Make me laugh, scream, and cry all in the same session, and then I’ll be impressed.”

”I’d hate to make a pretty lady cry, though.”

She elbowed him a bit harder. “I’m still your teacher, Mr. von Riegan. No flirting on my campus.”

He stuck his tongue out and broke into a run. “Who says this is your school?”

She chased him to the dining hall, laughing the whole way.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. :)


End file.
